Cut!: Hollywood Murders, Accidents, And Other Tragedies

by Bruce Elder, Andrew Brettell, Heather von Rohr

Rebel Without a Cause was one of the most talked-about movies of the 1950s. It might also have been the most jinxed. Among its stars, James Dean was soon killed in a car crash, Sal Mineo died several years later, murdered by an unknown assailant, and the beautiful Natalie Wood died mysteriously when she fell from a docked pleasure boat and drowned. This heavily illustrated book recounts these and many other tragic events that have haunted the Hollywood movie community from its early-twentieth-century beginnings to the present day. Here are accounts of the sudden, premature deaths of stars like Rudolph Valentino, Montgomery Clift, and Peter Sellers. Here too are stories about celebrities who died young because of alcohol or drug-related problems—John Belushi and Elvis Presley among many others—and of the tragic 1998 murder of comedian Phil Hartman. Car wrecks, plane crashes, and other deadly accidents sent Jayne Mansfield, Grace Kelly, and Carole Lombard, to untimely deaths, and accidents occurring during film production have taken several lives, perhaps the most dramatic being the helicopter crash that killed Vic Morrow in 1983. The tragic stories of many Hollywood personalities are told in Cut!, the definitive volume on the fleeting lives of movie celebrities, some of whom became more famous in death than they had been in life. Hundreds of photos, many in color.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime, Film, Media Tie In, History, Death

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Bruce Elder is a journalist, writer and commentator. He is currently a full-time journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald specialising in travel and popular culture. His other areas of expertise include film, television, and popular music. He has written extensively around Australia and has a passion for Australian history. He is also the director of Walkabout, the Fairfax organisation's detailed travel internet site.

Reviews

[Mick Meyers · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely brilliant book,not just for the macabre side of the subject.it covers the lives and careers of well known and not so well known film stars.it gives voice to some minor stars ie character actors who might not otherwise have been heard of otherwise.the only thing this might prove to those nowadays wanting instant fame,unless you are one of the few who make it and stay there it is a downward slide to obscurity.money and fame without real friends and family is an empty void,today's young wannabes should first read a book like this for abject lessons in life.onthe plus side it is not a book written in a salacious manner as in Kenneth angers book hollywood Babylon,there seems to be a sympathetic tone by the author in writing this book with just a hint of pathos.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of celebrities = lots of information, but the formulaic entries (1 or 2 photos, some biographical background, some career highlights, circumstances of death) don't make for an engrossing cover-to-cover read.

[Jose · Rating 1 out of 5]

Great book!Interesting little compendium, big in size yet small in content with some photos and info that can be found anywhere. It is by different compilers and you can tell seeing as there is different writing styles throughout. The bias is obvious with the book taking issue with HUAC which wad right all along and for right leaning celebs it insinuates they have different attractions. It also includes many theatre So not really hollyweird. With obscure Commiewood Celebs and folks such as Divine ? Really? It takes issues with the American 50s and its so called Decadence and how brave some of left leaning celebs were. It takes shots at Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck insinuates about their sexyality.It also seems to delight in the celebs undoings. Well at least it acknowledges the Khmer Rouge tragedy. Finally book is very eurocentric with focus heavily on British so-called stars.A nice book if you didn't know about all of this.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is mostly informative, it doesn’t focus entirely on celebrity deaths. To begin each nonfiction story, the author writes a short (sometimes long, depending on how famous the person was) synopsis of the celebrity’s life. The death description is usually only a few sentences long. I felt as if the author wanted to focus more on the life of the befallen star, rather than what the book should have been about, the death. Some of the stories were very interesting and entertaining, but half of the book was about celebrities who died naturally, which was pretty boring for my taste, so I skipped that section (which was the whole front half of the book!). Overall, three stars should sum the book up.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

While overall I thought this book did a good job of giving a detailed--if brief--biography of each Hollywood celebrity who died for reasons other than simple old age, there was one glaring error that drove me a bit nuts. The first time I saw it, I passed it off as just a mistake, but when it appeared TWICE, it was clear that the author was wrong.

It had to do with Heather O'Rourke, the little blonde girl who played Carol Anne in the film "Poltergeist." Her information was correct--as far as I know--but the picture that accompanied her bio was wrong. She wasn't in the picture at all, but the boy who played her brother, Oliver Robins, was. In a later chapter, which listed films that seemed to experience "curses" or deaths while in production, again, used the same photo and credited O'Rourke. Seriously, Robins didn't look remotely like O'Rourke!
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0732319/me...

[jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

who knew that 91 out of the 220 people involved with the 1956 film the conqueror developed cancer? i wish i could have written this book. it's all about the deaths of movie stars. it would have been mediocre if it just presented the facts. thankfully, the authors chose to include rumors and myths sparked by celebrity deaths, as well as a passage about why we as a culture as obsessed with them. best of all, the writing has a certain cinematic presence about it.

[Jdetrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure why I bought this book, and most of my problems with it don't really have to do with the writing involved, but the concept of the book itself. First of all, reading an entire book about death becomes depressing. Second of all, so many of these deaths are so similar (or the stories behind them seem so similar) that it becomes somewhat monotonous. Finally, there's not enough space for the interesting stories to really get the treatment they deserve.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thorough book going through the lives and deaths of movie stars of old and recent. Very illuminating- I learned a lot about actors. Some of the deaths are pretty horrifying, but I mainly liked the book due to the back stories of the players- who was married to who, who had famous kids, etc. The pictures are great too.

[Cami · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit gruesome and grim, this is a book a book recounting, in small obituary-type pieces, the deaths of Hollywood actors and actresses. Whether by foul play, natural causes, accidents or suicide, this gives all the details.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not that impressive, though the photographs are interesting.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of a rewind of "Hollywood Babylon."

[Sharonbrown3158 · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting collection of famous film stars begining in the early 1900's to near present day. I was particarily moved by the sad death of Clara Blandick (Auntie Em)

[Joanne Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting stories and information.

[Jeanine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great pictures, short vignettes of Hollywood actors going back to the silent movie days. Basically how they died and (often) where they're interred. Fascinating.

[Danelle Garrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

sad, but insightful